Support for Donald Trump's potential presidential candidacy took a hit at the end of April, according to a poll released Friday.
After a month in which Trump had seen his stock climb in polling on the race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, the real estate mogul's numbers declined slightly against other GOP leaders vying for the nomination in a Fox News poll released late Thursday.
Eight percent of Republicans said they would like to see Trump win the GOP nomination, down from 11 percent who said the same in an early April poll. That puts Trump fourth, behind former Govs. Mitt Romney (19 percent), Mike Huckabee (17 percent) and Sarah Palin (8 percent).
The Fox poll was conducted through Wednesday, the day on which President Obama released his "long-form" birth certificate. Trump gained a great deal of traction as a Republican candidate by questioning the legitimacy of Obama's birth certificate, and the president's release on Wednesday confirmed that Obama was born in Hawaii, despite Trump's suspicions.
Other numbers in the poll didn't bode particularly well for the host of TV's "The Apprentice."
Sixty-two percent of Americans said they would be "not at all" proud of Trump as their president, a number that far eclipses the distaste for other Republican presidential candidates. Fifty-seven percent of adults said they had an unfavorable opinion of Trump, versus 33 percent who have a favorable opinion of the billionaire.
Moreover, Americans were split, at 47 percent apiece, over whether they like Trump's "straight talk" during his flirtations with a potential presidential candidacy.
The poll, conducted April 25-27, has a 3 percent overall margin of error, and a 6 percent margin of error among Republicans.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who has been critical of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels's call for a "truce" on social issues, is urging him to sign into law a measure to defund Planned Parenthood.
Indiana's Republican-led legislature has sent to the governor's desk a measure that bars Planned Parenthood from receiving federal dollars in the state. The bill also bans abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, with an exception for risks to the health of the mother.
"I would hope he would sign it," Santorum said Thursday of his potential rival for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Daniels has not indicated whether he will sign the bill into law, but he has a week to decide before the measure becomes law without his signature. Indiana is the first state in the nation to pass such legislation.
Santorum said the measure was a no-brainer, launching a broadside against Planned Parenthood.
"I can't imagine any other organization with its roots as poisonous as the roots of Planned Parenthood getting federal funding of any kind," he said. "This is an organization that was founded on the eugenics movement, founded on racism. Its origins are horrific. You can say, 'well, it's not that anymore.' But it's not far from where it was, in my opinion, in its activities and its motivations."
A Medicare reform idea that could be included in likely GOP presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty's forthcoming budget proposal has run into opposition from a key House Republican.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Thursday dismissed Pawlenty's recent suggestion that Medicare costs could be cut by implementing "payment reforms" that would direct money to doctors and hospitals for better healthcare outcomes.
The congressman said that the idea hews too closely to the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) proposed in President Obama's healthcare law, which both Pawlenty and Ryan oppose. IPAB is tasked with lowering Medicare costs without affecting the quality of coverage.
"Medicare has yet to do this successfully," Ryan said during an interview with the conservative Weekly Standard. "The president wants his IPAB to do essentially the same thing."
Ryan's comments represent yet another split between the former Minnesota governor and House Republicans as both gear up for an election year in 2012.
House GOP leaders were annoyed with Pawlenty for opposing the spending compromise they brokered with President Obama and Senate Democrats.
Ryan, who some believe could mount a dark-horse run for president, is not afraid to go after potential GOP presidential candidates: He took a shot at the healthcare plan Mitt Romney implemented as governor of Massachusetts.
Ryan has said he is not interested in running for president in 2012.
Ryan's budget would transform Medicare benefits into so-called "premium support" for future seniors that would subsidize private healthcare coverage. Democrats have attacked the plan as a voucher system that would lead to the privatization of the popular, yet fiscally troubled program.
The Wisconsin Republican said that Pawlenty's idea, which is based off reforms he implemented in Minnesota, would rely too heavily on centralized bureaucracy to be effective.
"It’s very difficult for a centralized bureaucracy to do that ... When they get these targets, like the president is giving them, you know a half a trillion dollars, they just sort of do indiscriminate cutting across the board, lowering reimbursement to providers, causing providers to drop out of the program altogether," he said.
Pawlenty's presidential exploratory committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democrats went on the attack against New Hampshire Rep. Frank Guinta (R) for attending a fundraising luncheon this week at which Donald Trump was the keynote speaker.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) sought to link Guinta, a first-term Republican from a competitive district, with Trump, the bombastic real estate mogul and TV star who's flirting with running for the GOP presidential nomination.
Trump, who's surged in the polls in part due to his open questioning of President Obama's stated birthplace, visited the first-in-the-nation primary state on Wednesday.
Guinta attended one of the fundraising events at which Trump spoke, according to the New Hampshire Union Leader. The congressman was an invited guest of the New Hampshire GOP and the event was not a fundraiser for Trump, who hasn't filed the paperwork to allow him to begin raising money for a campaign.
But the DCCC sought to link the two with an email release entitled "Guinta Picks Trump for President," and an accompanying statement, which incorrectly accused Guinta of paying to attend the event.
“Over the last few weeks, New Hampshire voters have seen Representative Frank Guinta’s vision of the future, an America where seniors are left without Medicare and Donald Trump sits in the White House,” said DCCC Northeast Press Secretary Josh Schwerin. “As if his vote to give millionaires like Donald Trump massive tax cuts wasn’t enough, Representative Frank Guinta further showed his disconnect from the middle class by paying $1,000 for an exclusive lunch.”
Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) hinted Thursday he's moving closer to forming a presidential exploratory committee, saying he might still be able to meet the criteria to participate in next week's presidential debate in South Carolina.
"We're moving in that direction," Santorum told reporters after a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Fox News Channel, which is co-sponsoring the May 5 debate with the South Carolina GOP, outlined criteria earlier this month requiring candidates to either register a presidential exploratory committee or have announced a formal campaign for president by May 3.
Santorum has formed a "testing the waters" account, which allows him to start raising money for a presidential campaign, but isn't officially filed with the Federal Election Commission.
"What Fox is asking is not that big of a difference from where we are right now," Santorum said, hinting that an exploratory committee could become a reality in the next few days. "I don't see it as a particularly big step at this point."
Santorum made the comments after offering a blistering critique of President Obama's foreign policy.
Labeling the president an "apologist" who has fostered "confusion and doubt" on the world stage, Santorum said Obama isn't qualified to advance American interests because he rejects the idea of American exceptionalism.
Freshman Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) faced one of the rowdy town-hall audiences popping up across the country at his constituent event Wednesday evening.
Grimm, who could face a tough reelection, faced numerous interruptions from the crowd of about 100 in Brooklyn, N.Y., as he discussed the GOP's budget plan, Medicare and the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.
"You want to make Medicare into a voucher program," said one female audience member.
"Get it all out, get it all out. It's good to get it out. Get it out of your system," Grimm could be heard saying amid jeers.
The event was yet another example of town-hall anger Democrats are looking to use against Republicans with the hopes that they will define the debate over entitlements and the 2012 budget. During the summer of 2009, Republicans used similar incidents at Democrats' town halls to pin them down during healthcare debate.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the author of the House GOP's budget plan, has been the primary target of Democrats and their allies, and he has faced the music at his meet-and-greet events.
Other incidents have popped up in Florida, Pennsylvania and Montana.
Grimm has also been the target of scrutiny after an article in the New Yorker was published that stemmed from allegations that the congressman abused his power and engaged in racial discrimination during his time as an undercover FBI agent in 1999. Grimm has denied the allegations.
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